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Sailors are no strangers to getting their kit off for the cameras and Iain Percy is no exception.

The Sydney Olympic gold medallist is one of Britain's highest-profile sailors. He says one of his greatest strengths is not taking himself too seriously and he was one five members of Skandia Team GBR who stripped off and covered themselves in gold.

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This is my third trip to Beijing in the last two years and I'm still shocked by the sheer size of the city - and, most of all, by the millions of cars on the streets.

The Chinese authorities have introduced traffic restrictions which will take half of the 3.3 million cars off the roads during the Olympics in efforts to solve the capital's chronic air pollution problem. But it still feels busy.

There are still major doubts about how distance athletes are going to cope if the air is too polluted.

But London can't be complacent about its air for the 2012 Games, either.

They're certainly in good company in the Fight Art Club on the north side of Macau. Pictures of Muhammad Ali and Bruce Lee adorn the walls of the gymnasium, and it quickly becomes clear that these guys are not here for the ride.

Imagine your mother is standing in the doorway on a hot summer's day with the thickest winter feather duvet she has. She wraps you around and around in it and then tucks in all the edges, then gives you a big hug, rubbing up and down to create more heat, before you try and walk off.

Then, when you try to breath it is like being in bed and putting the duvet over your head to cut out the light and make it dark. You can hardly breathe because the air is so hot and oppressive.

That's quite a compliment from a man with 40 years' experience of the games, deliberately served up as a subtle reminder that the Olympics is about the athletes and their experience, not gripes from journalists about our working conditions.

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Our first full day here and already the excitement is building. It started as soon as we began our marathon journey from Heathrow on Friday. From London to Hong Kong, we were treated to an array of adverts by Jackie Chan on the in-flight entertainment system.

The man with iconic status all over the world, undertook a 55-second mission impossible trying to gain access to the Bird's Nest without a ticket. Of course he made it, and of course he grinned. So did we. Because we knew we were en route to a special experience.

A three hour lay-over in Hong Kong - where the equestrian events take place - gave the volunteers a chance to outdo Chan's smile with their warmth and enthusiasm. They succeeded. Everywhere you looked around the airport there were posters "One World. One Dream."